First Things First

Golf has always had an every man quality about it that makes the recreational golfer feel like he can do what the professionals can do.

And on occasion, you can! Every golfer can hit a flop shot to an inch of the cup, drain a long putt or hit a drive that carries a faraway obstacle. But, for the most part, what Tour players focus on in their swings can actually be detrimental to the recreational golfer. Golf is learned in stages and what we see the Tour players doing is for the most part a finished product. Most golfers, however, need to back up and learn what the Tour players learned very early in their golfing lives, and that is how to control your clubface.

The clubface is in reality only controlled by the hands, wrists and forearms. If you stood absolutely still and did nothing but hinged your wrists and rotated your forearms you could hit the golf ball. Not very far, but you could hit it. The movements of the rest of the body are what add length and power to your swing, but the hands, wrists and forearms are what helps you find the ball.

This releasing of the golf club is something the Tour pros learned very well. So well in fact, that in most cases they started to hook the ball. So to counterbalance that they started to turn their body at a greater rate of speed to even things out. This turning motion is what we hear most of them talking about because the releasing of the club had become such second nature that they no longer needed to focus on it. But we do!

The vast majority of golfers do not properly release their golf club, so when they try to imitate the body motion we hear the Tour players talking about all it does is create a big slice! To combat that we use a drill we call “L to L”.

Standing with their feet together and the ball on a tee we have players swing back so the club moves up between their forearms until the left arm and club shaft create an “L”. Then swing back down clip the ball off the tee and swing to the same “L” on the through swing. Having your feet together will minimize the body turn and isolate your ability to rotate your forearms.

If you add this drill into your practice sessions you will undoubtedly start to see the slice go away and begin to hit stronger, higher and straighter golf shots.

Jeff Fisher is the Director of Instruction at the OB Sports Golf Academy at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona. Jeff can be reached at 480.414.9330 or jfisher@obsports.com.